


On a Night Like This

by Yakkorat



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Huxloween, It Is a Ghost Story After All, M/M, Modern AU, Reincarnation, Reunion, ghost story, temporary major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27290272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yakkorat/pseuds/Yakkorat
Summary: Kylo doesn’t pick up hitchhikers. Not ever. But it’s pouring down rain, and Kylo hasn’t seen any shelter for miles, and the man looks way too pale under the streetlights.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 22
Kudos: 114





	On a Night Like This

**Author's Note:**

  * For [valda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valda/gifts).



> First of all, thank you to Valda for the amazing prompt. This is entirely your fault. I hope you like it as much as I liked writing it.
> 
> Copious gratitude goes to [DarthAstris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthAstris/pseuds/DarthAstris) for the lightning-quick turn around on the beta, and staying up the whole night going over edits with me. I am so grateful every day to have you in my life.
> 
> And as always, thank you to my beautiful Kit and Steve. I hope we find each other in every lifetime for the rest of forever.

Kylo doesn’t pick up hitchhikers. Not ever. Certainly not in a rented car with the steering wheel on the wrong side, in a country not his own, on a road he’s not exactly sure how he ended up driving. He’s not an idiot. But it’s pouring down rain, and Kylo hasn’t seen any shelter for miles, and the man looks way too pale under the streetlights. Kylo pulls over, hangs his body over the center console, blessing his long arms when he’s able to pull the passenger door handle and give the door a shove. “Hey, you need a ride?”

The man stops walking, bending to peer in at Kylo, presumably to assess whether he’s a good Samaritan or a serial killer. Maybe it’s a trick of the light, but the man’s eyes seem to widen. Rain buffets the car, splashing in through the open door; Kylo wishes the man would stop staring and make up his mind. 

Now that Kylo isn’t trying to keep his eyes on the road, he can get a better look at his potential traveling companion. It’s obvious how young this man is. He might even be a teenager, but it’s hard to gauge. Not that Kylo is much past his teen years, himself, but if this is a kid who needs help, Kylo is doubly glad he decided to stop. Besides, his semester abroad is almost over. He could use a little adventure before he goes home. At least, that’s what he’d been thinking when he’d decided to rent a car and drive out to the country for the weekend.

Finally, the young man nods and eases into the car. Kylo has had the heat on the whole drive, but the open door must have let all the warm air escape. By the time his new passenger is settled into his seat, Kylo could swear the temperature has dropped ten degrees. He turns the heat up.

Even under the dome light, the man looks pallid. He must have been out in the storm for quite a while. Why the hell is he out alone in weather like this? Where’s he going in the middle of the night wearing— whatever that is? Some kind of Halloween costume?

“I’m Kylo,” he says instead of asking any of the obvious questions. He offers his hand, but the stranger pulls his out of reach. It’s odd, but for a second, Kylo is sure their fingers should have touched, that they were actually occupying the same space at the same time, as silly as the idea may be. Then the other hand is gone, leaving only a chill in its wake.

“Forgive me.” The lilt of the man’s accent is soft as velvet. “I am soaked to the bone. You shouldn’t be drenched as well. That would be a poor way to repay your kindness.”

Kylo smiles. “You’re fine. Where’re you headed?”

“Just up the road a bit.” The man smiles as Kylo maneuvers the car onto the road again. “Thank you for stopping.”

“No problem,” Kylo grins. “Nobody should be out in this.”

The man sighs, his face turned toward the warmth blowing from the vents. “It is pleasant to be out of the rain.”

“I bet.” Kylo smiles again. “Should I turn on the radio? Is there a station you like?” He glances over at his passenger and notices the corners of his mouth stretching upward, just a little.

“I’m afraid I’m not much for music, but there’s nothing really to see out here to occupy the mind, especially in the dark. Shall I tell you a story, instead?” 

Kylo raises his eyebrows. That’s different. “What kind of story?”

“A ghost story.” Another hint of a smile curls his lips when Kylo glances over. “No,” the stranger corrects, “a love story.”

“Okay.” Kylo shrugs, because why not? “I’m game. Go for it.”

The stranger shifts in his seat so that he’s facing Kylo more than the windshield. “Once upon a time,” he begins, “there were two young men — barely more than boys, really — who loved each other very much. One was the bastard son of his lord and a kitchen maid: reasonably clever, not much to look at. The other was the strapping young son of the neighboring manor, strong and beautiful. 

“They met only by happy chance,” he says, smiling softly, “but they loved each other with all the passion of their youth, and dreamed of a day when they could run away, could be together somewhere quiet, away from everyone else, where no one would condemn them for their love. Most of all, young Benjamin sought young Armitage’s freedom, for Armitage’s lord father was a tyrant, and his father’s lady wife despised him as evidence of her husband’s wandering eye. They beat him, and worse, and many a night Armitage missed his planned rendezvous with Benjamin because he simply could not walk so far as their secret meeting place. Still, he forbade Benjamin from coming onto his father’s land to look for him. Lord Hux was a cruel man, and Armitage would not have his love in his father’s sight for all the world.

“Finally, Benjamin could take no more. He could not bear to continue sending his Armitage back to Lord Hux and Lord Hux’s lady wife, could not bear one more scar upon his lover’s skin. With his good lady mother’s help, Benjamin arranged passage on a ship to take them to the continent. There, Lady Organa had already secured rooms for them. They would pose as a young nobleman and his valet, and in this way they would travel until they found a place they could make their own. A home where they both could be safe and happy. 

“At the appointed hour, Armitage took his leave. With little more than the clothes on his back, he crept out of the home he had once shared with his dear, departed mother, and made his way to the road. This very road upon which we ride. The rain beat down upon him, much as it does this evening, but Armitage would not be deterred. He was to meet his beloved in their usual place, only this time Benjamin would escort Armitage from the edge of Hux land all the way to the Organa manor house, where a carriage waited to take them through the night to the coast.”

The stranger falls silent. 

When Kylo turns to look at him, his eyes are pressed closed, his long fingers curled into trembling fists on his thighs. 

“Are you okay?” 

The man smiles again, but this one is tight, unhappy. “Perhaps we should end here,” he says. “The rest is—“ he falters for a moment and then continues, “—distressing. It is an awfully dark night, and with the rain, you must mind the road. Your safety is paramount.”

Kylo’s breath catches. He checks behind him, but the road is still deserted. He pulls over as far as he can go, turns on his hazard lights, and shifts so that he can face his passenger. Outside, the rain batters down, but inside, the sound is strangely muted. His own whisper, when it comes, sounds loud as a freight train. “Tell me the rest,” he asks. “Please.”

The stranger — _Armitage_ , Kylo thinks, he is sure of it — graces him with a smile, painful in its sadness.

“Very well. As you might imagine, Armitage’s lord father had long suspected his unwanted son of ‘perverse inclinations.’” For the first time, Armitage fails to meet his eyes. “He tried to beat them from Armitage’s flesh at every opportunity. He could not have blood of his blood — for all that his son was illegitimate and unrecognized and no more than a serf on his estate — tainting his name by being a lover of men. And no serf escaped Lord Hux, either. He took great pleasure in pursuing those who would hope to leave and dragging them back to his lands in chains. It was only Benjamin’s wealth and his lady mother’s assistance that might have made escape possible. But fortune did not smile upon them.

“It was not unheard of for Lord Hux to make his way from the manor house to Armitage’s small home when he was inebriated and wanted something to hit until he exhausted himself. It was the worst possible luck that he went looking that night and found the hovel empty.”

Kylo’s stomach drops. He wants, aches, for the story to end differently than it has to. “He went after y— after Armitage.” 

Armitage nods. “He rode him down.” For an instant his lips thin. “Armitage was a fool to have used the road. He should have kept to the thicket, despite the rain.”

“He was young,” Kylo insists, and has to force himself to keep his hands at his sides instead of reaching to comfort the man beside him. “Full of hope, in a hurry to be with his lover and to finally be safe.” It earns him another of those gentle, tiny smiles.

“Safe,” Armitage whispers, soft as a prayer. 

“He deserved that. Safety. Love.” He clasps his hands together. Maybe that will make it easier to stop himself from touching. He’s never wanted to hold someone so much in his life. “Did Benjamin ever find out what happened to him? Why Armitage never made it to their meeting place?”

“Despite all Armitage’s warnings, he grew worried when Armitage did not appear. Benjamin traced the route his Armitage should have taken, varying between the thicket and the road until at last he found Armitage’s body abandoned in the ditch. He knelt in the mud and drew his lover’s corpse into his arms, and there he stayed, weeping, until finally he made a tiny shelter by the trees and laid his lover’s body down. Then he gripped his sword and made off into the night. He returned before sunrise, his fine clothes ruined, soaked with blood and rain and caked with mud. He carried his beloved’s body away. 

“Armitage watched through ghostly eyes, but he was barely a wisp then. He did not know how to be seen, how to make himself heard. When the rain stopped at last, Armitage slept. He has haunted this road, a lonely specter, ever since.”

“I am so sorry,” Kylo whispers, the words catching in his throat, grief a living, breathing anguish stealing the air from his lungs. “Do—” he begins and his voice falters. He has to try again. “Do you know what happened after?”

Armitage shrugs. “Travelers talk. Brendol was deep in his cups that night. Certainly not in any fit state to be riding. It was said that he was thrown from his horse. Thrown quite far, they thought, given the state of his body. No one was particularly grieved by his passing. 

“Soon after, heartbroken, Benjamin left the country, never to return. His kind lady mother, who only ever wanted happiness for her son and justice for Armitage, left flowers by the side of the road in her son’s name every full moon hence, until finally she came no more.” 

Kylo winces. “She died.”

“She did.” Armitage’s eyes are like still pools of pale jade, the green so fair it’s almost grey. “The world moves on,” he murmurs. “But Armitage does not. He waits. On rainy nights, he walks the road, trying once more to reach the meeting place where his Benjamin would have been waiting. And every once in a great while—” his gaze is intent, beseeching, “—if Armitage is very lucky, his Benjamin returns to the road. Wearing different clothes, riding different horses,” and there’s that soft smile again as he glances at the car around him, “but with the same beloved countenance, Benjamin comes to take his Armitage home.”

With that, he reaches over and lays the fingers of one elegant hand upon the inside of Kylo’s wrist, and for a second, Kylo feels nothing but cold, as if he’d laid frost against his tender skin. Then the fingers seem to coalesce into solid pressure, a perceptible touch, blinding light flooding his vision for a single instant, and Kylo gasps because he can feel it.

He knows.

No, he doesn't just know, he _remembers_. 

“It’s me, isn’t it?” he whispers, afraid to break the spell that has settled over them. “I’m him. I— I remember. How do I remember? I’m Benjamin.”

“Yes,” Armitage whispers. “Benjamin. My Benjamin.” He reaches forward, and his fingers are still cool when they brush down Kylo’s cheek, but not nearly as icy as they had been before. Kylo lays his fingers over Armitage’s where they rest on his skin and they’re firm and real and he remembers them. He knows their touch from another life, from hundreds of years ago.

Kylo — Benjamin? The appellation feels as much his own as the name he’s used his entire life — presses a kiss to Armitage’s palm. “How is this possible? How are you here? Have you been here all this time?”

Armitage laughs. “So many questions.” 

“‘Tige,” Kylo says without thinking, and Armitage’s breath catches. Kylo’s brow furrows for a moment, and then he realizes what he’s said and laughs himself. “My ‘Tige, tell me,” he begs, “please. What happens now?”

“Now we have a life together, the life we deserved all those centuries ago. I will be by your side, as I should be. I will age with you. And then, when someday you pass from this life,” he brushes a tear from Kylo’s cheek with his thumb, “I will return here, young as you see me now and incorporeal, to walk the road each time it rains, to wait again for you to find your way back to me. You always do, my love,” he breathes. “Lifetime after lifetime. You never remember why, not until I’ve told you our story, not until you know who I am and I become solid enough to touch, but somehow, no matter where you are born, you always find your way back to this road, back to my heart. My Benjamin.”

Kylo leans toward Armitage until their foreheads rest against one another’s. “And you can come with me? Home? Away from here?”

“Yes.” Armitage’s smile is radiant, is everything Kylo has ever wanted and more. “Benjamin, take me home.”


End file.
